UTOPIA Designing Futures

This postgraduate students’ showcase includes work that presents an imaginative and compelling vision of the future of design and making. Ravensbourne students now lift the lid on the results of many months of planning, research and development. The work will be the platform from which they launch their creative industry careers.

Control impinges on freedom and there are some aspects of play that are serious. It is apparent that participatory design influences practice and the physical world of materials has to be intrinsic to design itself. The footprint of technology is inescapable and today’s new generation of creatives, while informed by the past, must seize future opportunities that belong to them alone.

Advanced rapid prototyping processes are combined with electronics to create intriguing interactions. Fashion design is informed by new methods of garment. Accessory construction and communication design is mapped across a variety of media formats. Reality is challenged by a sophisticated “life like” artifice, and sonic and visual layered syncopation approaches result in fascinating moving image and visual effects. Sustainable design processes inform environmental design and the handling of materials and there is a reliance on modular and flexible units for construction and production.

The postgraduate showcase will open with a panel discussion on ways in which design thinking can drive innovation and sustainability. The transformation from an economy of the past to an economy of the future is a challenging one and calls for a deeper understanding, not just of the business and social environment which we inhabit, but also of our own inner motives, values and ways of thinking.